13 Natural Makeup Companies Beauty Junkies Love

It's not easy to find green green beauty products. You want a muddy-brown eye shadow? No problem. Pink tinted lip balm? Piece of cake. But when it comes to vivid color and exciting formulas, it's hard to find what you want on the all-natural shelf. Hard, but not impossible. Read on.

Let's get this out of the way: The products are a billion times more exciting than the name of this line. They're free of synthetic dyes, chemical preservatives, and all the other junk we try to avoid when possible. The delicious, sweet smell of their Fruit Pigmented Pomegranate Oil Anti Aging Lipsticks comes from the fruit-based pigments (Poppy, shown here, has plum, cherry, grape, raspberry, blackberry, and apricot extracts). And while they may not have the flashiest packaging or price tags (the lipsticks are a reasonable $25), 100% Pure's products work. Really well. The colors are rich, the textures are silky, and they rival any of their chemical counterparts in staying power. And yes, we're a little obsessed.

Ilia Beauty Polka Dots & Moonbeams Illuminator is best for people who think they can't highlight or contour. It's an un-screw-up-able product. Swipe the stick along your upper cheekbones and down the center of your nose—and then take a look in the mirror. Your skin will look pretty much the same, just slightly dewier. The blend of organic oils makes the shimmer go on really light and sheer. All of Ilia's products are made with up to 85 percent U.S.D.A.-certified organic ingredients and are cruelty-free. So if highlighter isn't your thing, we're just as passionate about their lipsticks and tinted lip conditioners, which happen to be crazy vivid, long-lasting, and superhydrating.

Here at Allure, we probably take our mascaras too seriously. We tested more than 700 of them last year alone. So when we say that a natural mascara outperforms some of our tried-and-true formulas, it's a big, exciting deal. W3LL People Expressionist Bio Extreme Mascara is blacker than pitch, lifts and defines every lash, and lasts all day long without flaking or smudging. But wait, there's more! It doesn't irritate those with sensitive eyes or contact-lens wearers, and it wipes off easily with standard makeup remover. In fact, the whole line of 100 percent natural products can go head-to-head with some of our favorite designer brands. We especially like the Universalist Matte Multi-Use Colorsticks (for eyes, cheeks, all over), Nudist Colorbalms (creamy lipsticks in punchy shades), and Narcissist Stick Foundation (for medium-coverage, all-natural foundation on the go).

Speaking of mascaras, so many natural ones leave your lashes looking too natural. Which is fine, except for on weekends, date nights, and for Tinder profile pictures. Antonym Lola Lash Mascara is a little more dramatic—the superblack formula is brushed on with a curved, nylon-bristle brush. It makes lashes look thick and sexy with just one or two coats, and it holds up better than most other natural mascaras we've tried: About ten hours in, it just started to get a little smudgy, leaving a halo of smoky black around our lash lines. So easy smoky eyes that come off with just one pass of a makeup wipe? We'll take 'em.

Suntegrity 5-in-1 Natural Moisturizing Face Sunscreen Tinted is a killer sunscreen, a great tinted foundation, and somehow still all-natural. It has the same broad-spectrum protection and antioxidants as their Best of Beauty–winning primer, mixed with all-natural, light to medium coverage (available in five shades). The formula is fragrance-free, vegan, and cruelty-free. It layers seamlessly under foundation but also covers dark marks and acne spots well enough to wear alone. It doesn't feel greasy, so it's great for oily or combination skin. But if you're on the drier side, slather on some moisturizer first.

Too often, natural and luxury are mutually exclusive. That's why we love Kjaer Weis (don't bother trying to say it out loud). From the sturdy, metallic packaging to the pigments in the creams, all the products look and feel—and OK, are—expensive (blushes start at $56). We gave the Radiance highlighter a Best of Beauty Award last year, but we're just as fond of the Kjaer Weis Foundation—it's 100 percent natural and covers our dark spots and acne marks without feeling cakey. Plus, we love that they sell eco- and budget-friendly refills, so you can pop a fresh one into all that schmancy packaging.

The RMS Beauty Living Luminizer is a legend in the natural-beauty world. It's actually become a staple for celebrities, makeup artists, beauty editors, and regular civilians who don't even care about whether it's natural or not—just that it's good. But while we could go on about the endless ways to use the gold-flecked highlighter (have you tried dabbing it around your eyes the morning after a long night? Genius!), we would be remiss if we didn't mention how good the rest of RMS's products are. The creamy lip and cheek pots, eye shadows, mascara, and face powder are free of all the crap and very transparent about what ingredients they use and why.

You've got to give extra credit to a brand that goes ahead and bans 1,500 chemicals from their products right out of the gate. When Beautycounter first launched, we oohed and aahed over the skin care, and we're now doing the same over the makeup. We gave the Lipstick in Twig a Best of Beauty Award last year, but it's the new Color Sweep Blush Duo in Tawny/Whisper that's become a breakout star. The mix of peachy blush and shimmery bronzer gives cheeks a healthy, believable flush with just one pass of your brush—and the graphic packaging ups your bathroom-cabinet game in a big way.

We were under the impression that mineral eye shadows had to be jars of loose, messy, hard-to-deal-with powder. But then we tried Dr. Hauschka's Eyeshadow Palette in 01, a mix of four neutral shades. You'd never know it was a natural product by looking at it—or using it, for that matter. We've dipped our brush into all four shades equally, from the vanilla to the chocolate brown; they're that wearable. The pigments feel soft, so they're easy to sweep around your eyes and blend in. And because Dr. Hauschka is a skin-care brand, after all, the shadows contain extracts of black tea, anthyllis, and witch hazel to soothe and tone the skin around your eyes.

This natural, mineral-pigmented Jane Iredale Mystikol eyeliner might equal the easiest smoky eye of all time. On one end is a sooty liner; on the other a complementary highlighter. Both come out of a squishy, pointed sponge tip that you can easily trace along your lash line and blend out with your fingertip. Once blended, the color is soft and smoky and pretty. That's it. Done. Next?

If you're new to the whole natural/eco-friendly movement, Josie Maran is the place to start. The products are infused with argan oil that the company sources from female-run co-ops in Morocco. The ingredients are natural and organic, and the products are awesome. One of our favorites from the line is the Coconut Watercolor Eyeshadow; it contains coconut water and glycerin, which pulls moisture in from the air to keep the color from creasing. And we love that the shadow is metallic; comes in vibrant shades, like green and purple; and lasts for hours and hours—no small feat for a natural product.

Buy what you know. (That's the expression, right?) This year, I'm going to skip the scarves and wallets and stay in my wheelhouse: Everyone on my list is getting a beauty gift perfectly tailored to them.